HIST 1301 Exam 1 Terms

Prince Henry 'the Navigator'

(1394-1460) Was an important figure in 15th-century Portuguese politics and in the early days of the Portuguese Empire. Through his administrative direction, he is regarded as the main initiator of what would be known as the Age of Discoveries. Henry was the third child of the Portuguese king John I and responsible for the early development of Portuguese exploration and maritime trade with other continents through the systematic exploration of Western Africa, the islands of the Atlantic Ocean, and the search for new routes. Henry encouraged his father to conquer Ceuta (1415), the Muslim port on the North African coast across the Straits of Gibraltar from the Iberian Peninsula. He learned of the opportunities from the Saharan trade routes that terminated there, and became fascinated with Africa in general; he was most intrigued by the Christian legend of Prester John and the expansion of Portuguese trade. Henry is regarded as the patron of Portuguese exploration. In 1431 he donated houses for the Estudo Geral to reunite all the sciences — grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, and astronomy — into what would later become the University of Lisbon. For other subjects like medicine or philosophy, he ordered that each room should be decorated according to each subject that was being taught. in the Algarve he repopulated a village that he called Terçanabal (from terça nabal or tercena nabal). This village was situated in a strategic position for his maritime enterprises and was later called Vila do Infante ("Estate or Town of the Prince"). It is traditionally suggested that Henry gathered at his villa on the Sagres peninsula a school of navigators and map-makers. He employed some cartographers to chart the coast of Mauritania after the voyages he sent there. Referring to Sagres, sixteenth-century Portuguese mathematician and cosmographer Pedro Nunes remarked, "from it our sailors went out well taught and provided with instruments and rules which all map makers and navigators should know." The view that Henry's court rapidly grew into the technological base for exploration, with a naval arsenal and an observatory, etc., although repeated in popular culture, has never been established. Henry did possess geographical curiosity, and employed cartographers. Jehuda Cresques, a noted cartographer, has been said to have accepted an invitation to come to Portugal to make maps for the infante. This last incident probably accounts for the legend of the School of Sagres, which is now discredited. The first contacts with the African slave market were made by expeditions to ransom Portuguese subjects enslaved by pirate attacks on Portuguese ships or villages.

Bartolomeo Diaz

(1451-1500) Was a nobleman of the Portuguese royal household, and Portuguese explorer. He sailed around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1488, reaching the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic, the first European known to have done so. The expedition sailed south along the west coast of Africa. Extra provisions were picked up on the way at the Portuguese fortress of São Jorge de Mina on the Gold Coast. After having sailed past Angola, Dias reached the Golfo da Conceicão (Walvis Bay) by December. Continuing south, he discovered first Angra dos Ilheus, being hit, then, by a violent storm. Thirteen days later, from the open ocean, he searched the coast again to the east, discovering and using the westerlies winds - the ocean gyre, but finding just ocean. Having rounded the Cape of Good Hope at a considerable distance to the west and southwest, he turned towards the east, and taking advantage of the winds of Antarctica that blow strongly in the South Atlantic, he sailed northeast. After 30 days without seeing land, he entered what he named Aguada de São Brás (Bay of Saint Blaise)—later renamed Mossel Bay—on 4 February 1488. Dias's expedition reached its furthest point on 12 March 1488 when they anchored at Kwaaihoek, near the mouth of the Boesmans River, before turning back. Dias wanted to continue sailing to India, but he was forced to turn back when his crew threatened to mutiny and refused to go any further. It was only on the return voyage that he actually discovered the Cape of Good Hope, in May 1488. Dias returned to Lisbon in December of that year, after an absence of sixteen months. The discovery of the passage around southern Africa was significant because, for the first time, Europeans realised they could trade directly with India and the other parts of Asia, bypassing the overland route through the Middle East, with its expensive middlemen. The official report of the expedition has been lost. Bartolomeu Dias originally named the Cape of Good Hope the "Cape of Storms" (Cabo das Tormentas). It was later renamed (by King John II of Portugal) the Cape of Good Hope (Cabo da Boa Esperança) because it represented the opening of a route to the east..

Queen Isabella

(1451-1504) Was Queen of Castile. She was married to Ferdinand II of Aragon. Their marriage became the basis for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. After a struggle to claim her right to the throne, she reorganized the governmental system, brought the crime rate to the lowest it had been in years, and unburdened the kingdom of the enormous debt her brother had left behind. Her reforms and those she made with her husband had an influence that extended well beyond the borders of their united kingdoms. Isabella and Ferdinand are known for completing the Reconquista, ordering conversion or exile of their Muslim and Jewish subjects in the Spanish Inquisition, and for supporting and financing Christopher Columbus' 1492 voyage that led to the opening of the New World and to the establishment of Spain as the first global power which dominated Europe and much of the world for more than a century. Isabella was granted the title Servant of God by the Catholic Church in 1974.

Christopher Columbus

(1451-1506) Was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World. Western imperialism and economic competition were emerging among European kingdoms through the establishment of trade routes and colonies. As far back as the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two different locations: Alexandria and Syene (modern-day Aswan). These measurements were widely known among scholars, but confusion about the old-fashioned units of distance in which they were expressed had led, in Columbus's day, to some debate about the exact size of the Earth. Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (or a degree of longitude along the equator) spanned 56⅔ miles, but did not realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile rather than the shorter Roman mile with which he was familiar. He therefore estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 18,000 mi., whereas the actual distance is 25,000 mi. Columbus therefore estimated the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan to be about 2,300 statute miles. The true figure is now known to be vastly larger: about 12,500 mi. No ship in the 15th century could have carried enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage, and the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted ocean would have been formidable. Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The Spanish monarchs, however, having completed an expensive war in the Iberian Peninsula, were eager to obtain a competitive edge over other European countries in the quest for trade with the Indies. Columbus's project, though far-fetched, held the promise of such an advantage. Columbus proposed to reach the East Indies by sailing westward, and this eventually received the support of the Spanish Crown, which saw a chance to enter the spice trade with Asia through a new westward route, as well as a convenient means of ridding the newly established kingdom of it potentially disruptive soldiery left over from the Reconquista. During his first voyage in 1492, he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan ('Cipangu') as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named "Hispaniola". Columbus was not the first European explorer to reach the Americas, having been preceded by the Viking expedition led by Leif Erikson in the 11th century, but his voyages led to the first LASTING European contact with the Americas, ushering in a period of European exploration, conquest, and colonization that lasted several centuries. These voyages had, therefore, an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. He spearheaded the transatlantic slave trade and has been accused by several historians of initiating the genocide of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of . Columbus never admitted that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies for which he had set course. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios (Spanish for "Indians"). His strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and dismissal as governor of the settlements on the island of Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits that he and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.

Amerigo Vespucci

(1454-1512) After 1495, as a result of the jealous intrigues of Bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, the Ferdinand and Isabella broke their monopoly deal with Christopher Columbus and began handing out licenses to other navigators for the West Indies. Just around this time (1495-96), Vespucci worked as a clerk in the offices of the famous Florentine businessman Lorenzo di Medici. Vespucci organized the fulfillment of outstanding contract with the Castilian crown to provide twelve vessels for the Indies. After these were delivered, Vespucci continued as a provision contractor for Indies expeditions, and is known to have secured beef supplies for at least one (if not two) of Columbus' voyages. At the invitation of king Manuel I of Portugal, Vespucci participated as observer in several voyages that explored the east coast of South America between 1499 and 1502. On the first of these voyages he was aboard the ship that discovered that South America extended much further south than previously thought. The expeditions became widely known in Europe after two accounts attributed to Vespucci were published between 1502 and 1504. In 1507, after reading the possibly fraudulent accounts, German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the new continent America after the feminine Latin version of Vespucci's first name, which is Americus. In an accompanying book, Waldseemüller published one of the Vespucci accounts, which led to criticism that Vespucci was trying to upset Christopher Columbus' glory. However, the rediscovery in the 18th century of other letters by Vespucci has led to the view that the early published accounts could be fabrications, not by Vespucci, but by others.

Vasco Da Gama

(1460-1524) Was a Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea. His initial voyage to India (1497-1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia by an ocean route, connecting the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and, in this way, the West and the Orient. Da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India was significant and opened the way for an age of global imperialism and for the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial empire in Asia. Traveling the ocean route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula. The sum of the distances covered in the outward and return voyages made this expedition the longest ocean voyage ever made until then, far longer than a full voyage around the world by way of the Equator. After decades of attempts to reach the Indies, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, and the unsuccessful effort by Bartolomeo Diaz, da Gama landed in Calicut on 20 May 1498. Unopposed access to the Indian spice routes boosted the economy of the Portuguese Empire, which was previously based along northern and coastal West Africa. The spices obtained from Southeast Asia were primarily pepper and cinnamon at first, but soon included other products, all new to Europe. Portugal maintained a commercial monopoly of these commodities for several decades. It would be a century later before other European powers such as the Netherlands and England, followed by France and Denmark, were able to challenge Portugal's monopoly and naval supremacy in the Cape Route.

Francisco Pizarro

(1471?-1541) A second cousin of Hernando Cortes, Pizarro was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that conquered the Inca Empire. He captured and killed Incan emperor Atahualpa and claimed the lands for Spain. Reports of Peru's riches and Cortés's success in Mexico tantalized Pizarro. He undertook two expeditions to conquer the Incan Empire in 1524 and in 1526. Both failed as a result of native hostilities, bad weather and lack of provisions. Pedro de los Ríos, the Governor of Panama, made an effort to recall Pizarro, but the conquistador resisted and remained in the south. In April 1528, he reached northern Peru and found the natives rich with precious metals. This discovery gave Pizarro the motivation to plan a third expedition to conquer the area. He returned to Panama to make arrangements, but the Governor refused to grant permission for the project. Pizarro returned to Spain to appeal directly to King Charles I. His plea was successful and he received not only a license for the proposed expedition, but also authority over any lands conquered during the venture. He was joined by family and friends and the expedition left Panama in 1530. When hostile natives along the coast threatened the expedition, Pizarro moved inland and founded the first Spanish settlement in Peru, San Miguel de Piura. Atahualpa refused to tolerate a Spanish presence in his lands, but was captured by Pizarro during the Battle of Cajamarca on 16 November 1532. A ransom for the emperor's release was demanded and Atahualpa filled a room with gold, but Pizarro charged him with various crimes and executed him on 26 July 1533, overriding his associates who thought he was overstepping his authority. The same year, Pizarro entered the Inca capital of Cuzco and completed his conquest of Peru. In January 1535, Pizarro founded the city of Lima, a project he considered his greatest achievement. Quarrels between Pizarro and his longtime comrade-in-arms Diego Almagro culminated in the Battle of Las Salinas. Almagro was captured and executed and, on 26 June 1541, his embittered son, Diego de Almagro "el mozo", assassinated Pizarro in Lima. The conquistador of Peru was laid to rest in the Lima Cathedral.

Ponce de Leon

(1474-1521) Was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. Once the war against the last Moorish stronghold of Granada ended with the Reconquista, there was no apparent need for his military services at home, so, like many of his contemporaries, Ponce de León looked abroad for his next opportunity. In September 1493, some 1,200 sailors, colonists, and soldiers joined Christopher Columbus for his second voyage to the New World. Ponce de León was a member of this expedition, one of 200 "gentleman volunteers." He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown. He led the first known European expedition to La Florida, which he named during his first voyage to the area in 1513. Though in popular culture, he was supposedly searching for the Fountain of Youth, there is no contemporary evidence to support the story, which is likely a myth. Ponce de León returned to southwest Florida in 1521 to lead the first large-scale attempt to establish a Spanish colony in what is now the continental United States. However, the native Calusa people fiercely resisted the incursion, and de León was seriously wounded in a skirmish. The colonization attempt was abandoned, and its leader died from his wounds soon after returning to Cuba. He was interred in Puerto Rico, and his tomb is located inside of the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista in San Juan.

Vasco de Balboa

(1475-1519) Was a Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Darien in Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World. He traveled to the New World in 1500 and, after some exploration, settled on the island of Hispaniola. He founded the settlement of Santa María la Antigua del Darién in Panama in 1510, which was the first permanent European settlement on the mainland of the Americas. He was later arrested by Francisco Pizarro on the orders of Balboa's one-time rival, and later father-in-law, on trumped-up charges of usurpation of power. Balboa was tried and executed by beheading.

Ferdinand Magellan

(1480-1521) Was a Portuguese explorer who organised the Spanish expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano. Born into a Portuguese noble family in around 1480, Magellan became a skilled sailor and naval officer and was eventually selected by King Charles I of Spain to search for a westward route to the Maluku Islands (the "Spice Islands"). Commanding a fleet of five vessels, he headed south through the Atlantic Ocean to Patagonia, passing through the Strait of Magellan into a body of water he named the "peaceful sea" (the modern Pacific Ocean). Despite a series of storms and mutinies, the expedition reached the Spice Islands in 1521 and returned home via the Indian Ocean to complete the first circuit of the globe. Unfortunately, Magellan did not complete the entire voyage, as he was killed during the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines in 1521. However, since Magellan had already reached the Malay Archipelago in Southeast Asia on previous voyages by traveling east (from 1505 to 1511-1512), it only remained for him to visit this area again, but now travelling west. For that reason, Magellan achieved a nearly complete personal circumnavigation of the globe for the first time in history and is thus credited for the feat. When Victoria, the smallest and last surviving ship in the fleet, returned to the harbor of departure after completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth, only 18 men were left out of the original 270 men who had set sail 3 years earlier..

Hernando Cortes

(1485-1547) Was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Born in Medellín, Spain, Cortés chose to pursue a livelihood in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an encomienda and, for a short time, became alcalde (magistrate) of the second Spanish town founded on the island. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, an expedition which he partly funded. His enmity with the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, resulted in the recall of the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored. Arriving on the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous people against others. He also used a native woman, Doña Marina, as an interpreter; she would later bear Cortés a son. When the Governor of Cuba sent emissaries to arrest Cortés, he fought them and won, using the extra troops as reinforcements. Cortés wrote letters directly to the king asking to be acknowledged for his successes instead of punished for mutiny. After he overthrew the Aztec Empire, Cortés was awarded the title of Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, while the more prestigious title of Viceroy was given to a high-ranking nobleman, Antonio de Mendoza. In 1541 Cortés returned to Spain, where he died peacefully but embittered, six years later.

Treaty of Tordesillas

(1494) Was a treaty organized by Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia), and signed at Tordesillas, in central Spain, which divided the newly discovered lands of the New World outside Europe between Portugal and Spain, along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa. This so-called Papal Line of Demarcation was about halfway between the Cape Verde islands (already Portuguese) and the islands entered by Christopher Columbus on his first voyage (claimed for Castile and León), named in the treaty as Cipangu and Antilia (Cuba and Hispaniola). The lands to the east would belong to Portugal and the lands to the west to Castile. The other side of the world was divided a few decades later by the Treaty of Zaragoza or Saragossa, signed on 22 April 1529, which specified the antimeridian to the line of demarcation specified in the Treaty of Tordesillas. This treaty would be observed fairly well by Spain and Portugal, despite considerable ignorance as to the geography of the New World; however, it omitted all of the other European powers. Those countries generally ignored the treaty, particularly those that became Protestant after the Protestant Reformation.

Vasquez de Coronado

(1510-1554) Was a Spanish conquistador and explorer who led a large expedition from Mexico to present-day Kansas through parts of the southwestern United States between 1540 and 1542. Coronado had hoped to reach the Cities of Cíbola, often referred to now as the mythical Seven Cities of Gold, which is a term not invented until American gold-rush days in the 1800s. His expedition marked the first European sightings of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, among other landmarks.

Francis Drake

(1540-1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Drake carried out the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, and was the first to complete the voyage as captain while leading the expedition throughout the entire circumnavigation. With his incursion into the Pacific he inaugurated an era of privateering and piracy in the western coast of the Americas—an area that had previously been free of piracy. On 26 September, Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth with Drake and 59 remaining crew aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures. Queen Elizabeth I's half-share of the cargo surpassed the rest of the crown's income for that entire year. Drake was hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth (and the second such voyage arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano's in 1520). Elizabeth rewarded Drake with a knighthood aboard the Golden Hind in Deptford on 4 April 1581. The Queen declared that all written accounts of Drake's voyages were to become the Queen's secrets of the Realm, and Drake and the other participants of his voyages on the pain of death sworn to their secrecy; she intended to keep Drake's activities away from the eyes of rival Spain. Drake presented the Queen with a jewel token commemorating the circumnavigation. Taken as a prize off the Pacific coast of Mexico, it was made of enamelled gold and bore an African diamond and a ship with an ebony hull. For her part, the Queen gave Drake a jewel with her portrait, an unusual gift to bestow upon a commoner, and one that Drake sported proudly in his 1591 portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts now at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. On one side is a state portrait of Elizabeth by the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard, on the other a sardonyx cameo of double portrait busts, a regal woman and an African male. The "Drake Jewel", as it is known today, is a rare documented survivor among sixteenthcentury jewels; it is conserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He was second-incommand of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He died of dysentery in January 1596 after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico. His exploits made him a hero to the English but a pirate to the Spaniards, to whom he was known as El Draque. King Philip II was said to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats, about £4million (US$6.5 million) by modern standards, for his life. In January 1596, he died of dysentery when he was about 55, while anchored off the coast of Portobelo, Panama, where some Spanish treasure ships had sought shelter. Following his death, the English fleet withdrew. Before dying, he asked to be dressed in his full armour. He was buried at sea in a lead coffin, near Portobelo. Divers continue to search for the coffin today.

Chief Powhatan

(1545-1618) Was the paramount chief of Tsenacommacah, an alliance of Algonquian-speaking Virginia Indians in the Tidewater region of Virginia at the time English settlers landed at Jamestown in 1607. Powhatan, alternately called "King" or "Chief" Powahatan by the English, led the main political and military power facing the early colonists, was probably the older brother of Opechancanough, who led attacks against the English in 1622 and 1644. He was the father of Pocahontas, who eventually converted to Christianity and married the English settler John Rolfe. Little is known of Powhatan's life before the arrival of English colonists in 1607. He apparently inherited the leadership of about 4-6 tribes, with its base at the fall line near present-day Richmond. Through diplomacy and/or force, he had assembled a total of about 30 tribes into the Powhatan Confederacy by the early 17th century. The confederacy was estimated to include 10,000-15,000 people. In December 1607, English soldier and pioneer John Smith, one of the Jamestown colony's leaders, was captured by a hunting expedition led by Opechancanough, the younger brother of Powhatan. Smith was taken to Werowocomoco, Powhatan's capital along the York River. Smith recounted in 1624 that Pocahontas (whose given name was Matoaka), one of Powhatan's daughters, kept her father from executing him. However, since Smith's 1608 and 1612 reports omitted this account, many historians have doubted its accuracy. Some believe that the event Smith recounted as a prelude to his execution was an adoption ceremony by which Smith was ritually accepted as subchief of the town of Capahosic in Powhatan's alliance.

Sir Walter Raleigh

(1554-1618) Was an English landed gentleman, writer, poet, soldier, politician, courtier, spy and explorer. (He was the younger half-brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who was commissioned by Elizabeth I to scout and survey the North American coastline for evidence of the fabled 'Northwest Passage from the Atlantic into the Pacific) Sir Walter Raleigh is also well known for popularising tobacco in England. He rose rapidly in the favour of Queen Elizabeth I and was knighted in 1585. Raleigh was instrumental in the English colonisation of North America and was granted a royal patent to explore Virginia, which paved the way for future English settlements. In 1587, Raleigh attempted a second expedition, again establishing a settlement on Roanoke Island. This time, a more diverse group of settlers was sent, including some entire families, under the governance of John White.[17] After a short while in America, White returned to England to obtain more supplies for the colony, planning to return in a year. Unfortunately for the colonists at Roanoke, one year became three. The first delay came when Queen Elizabeth I ordered all vessels to remain at port for potential use against the Spanish Armada. After England's 1588 victory over the Spanish Armada, the ships were given permission to sail. The second delay came after White's small fleet set sail for Roanoke and his crew insisted on sailing first towards Cuba in hopes of capturing treasure-laden Spanish merchant ships. Enormous riches described by their pilot, an experienced Portuguese navigator hired by Raleigh, outweighed White's objections to the delay. When the supply ship arrived in Roanoke, three years later than planned, the colonists had disappeared. In 1591, he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, without the Queen's permission, for which he and his wife were sent to the Tower of London. After his release, they retired to his estate at Sherborne, Dorset. In 1594, Raleigh heard of a "City of Gold" in South America and sailed to find it, publishing an exaggerated account of his experiences in a book that contributed to the legend of "El Dorado". After Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, Raleigh was again imprisoned in the Tower, this time for being involved in the Main Plot against King James I, who was not favourably disposed towards him. In 1616, he was released to lead a second expedition in search of El Dorado. During the expedition, men under his command ransacked a Spanish outpost, in violation of both the terms of his pardon and a peace treaty with Spain. He returned to England and, to appease the Spanish, was arrested and executed in 1618. Raleigh was one of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era.

Cpt. Chris. Newport

(1561-1617) Was an English seaman and privateer. He is best known as the captain of the Susan Constant, the largest of three ships which carried settlers for the Virginia Company in 1607 on the way to found the settlement at Jamestown in the Virginia Colony, which became the first permanent English settlement in North America. He was also in overall command of the other two ships on that initial voyage, in order of their size, the Godspeed and the Discovery. He made several voyages of supply between England and Jamestown; in 1609, he became Captain of the Virginia Company's new supply ship, Sea Venture, which met a hurricane during the Third Supply mission, and was shipwrecked on the archipelago of Bermuda. Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, was named in his honor. The source of the name "Newport News" is not known with certainty. Several versions are recorded, and it is the subject of popular speculation locally. Probably the bestknown explanation holds that when an early group of Jamestown colonists left to return to England after the Starving Time during the winter of 1609-1610 aboard a ship of Captain Christopher Newport, they encountered another fleet of supply ships under the new Governor Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr in the James River off Mulberry Island with reinforcements of men and supplies. The new governor ordered them to turn around, and return to Jamestown. Under this theory, the community was named for Newport's "good news".

George and Cecilius Calvert

(1579-1632) George was an English politician and coloniser. He achieved domestic political success as a Member of Parliament and later Secretary of State under King James I. He lost much of his political power after his support for a failed marriage alliance between Prince Charles and the Spanish House of Habsburg royal family. Rather than continue in politics, he resigned all of his political offices in 1625 except for his position on the Privy Council and declared his Catholicism publicly. He was created Baron Baltimore in the Irish peerage upon his resignation. Baltimore Manor was located in County Longford, Ireland. The name Baltimore is an Anglicisation of the Irish Baile an Tí Mhóir, which means "town of the big house." Calvert took an interest in the British colonisation of the Americas, at first for commercial reasons and later to create a refuge for persecuted English Catholics. The Puritan movement was becoming influential in England at the time, and the leader of the He became the proprietor of Avalon, the first sustained English settlement on the southeastern peninsula on the island of Newfoundland (off the eastern coast of modern Canada). Discouraged by its cold and sometimes inhospitable climate and the sufferings of the settlers, Lord George looked for a more suitable spot further south and sought a new royal charter to settle the region, which would become the state of Maryland. Calvert died five weeks before the new Charter was sealed, leaving the settlement of the Maryland colony to his son Cecilius, (1605-1675). His second son Leonard Calvert, (1606-1647), was the first colonial governor of the Province of Maryland.

John Rolfe

(1585-1622) Was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia and is known as the husband of Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Indians. Prior to John Rolfe's appearance, Spain held a virtual monopoly on the lucrative tobacco trade. Most Spanish colonies in the New World were located in southern climates more favourable to tobacco growth than the English settlement at Jamestown. As tobacco use had increased, the balance of trade between England and Spain began to be seriously affected. Rolfe would be one of a number of businessmen who saw the opportunity to undercut Spanish imports by growing tobacco in England's new colony in Virginia. Rolfe had somehow obtained seeds to take with him from a special popular strain then being grown in Trinidad and South America, even though Spain had declared a penalty of death to anyone selling such seeds to a non-Spaniard. Rolfe, his wife and their daughter were bound for Jamestown in 1609 when a hurricane blew them off course and foundered their ship in Bermuda in the West Indies. Rolfe's wife and daughter died and were buried there. He somehow obtained the West Indian tobacco seeds, and proceeded to Jamestown, where he cross-bred the Caribbean stock with the much harsher, yet hardier Virginia tobacco. With this new hybrid, Rolfe was able to successfully launch England's commerical venture in tobacco cultivation as well as insure the commercial viability of the Virginia Company itself. Rolfe married Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan, on 5 April 1614. A year earlier, Pocahontas had converted to Christianity and was given the name "Rebecca" at her baptism. Powhatan gave the newlyweds property just across the James River from Jamestown. They never lived on the land, which spanned thousands of acres, and instead lived for two years on Rolfe's plantation, Varina Farms, across the James River from the new community of Henricus. Their marriage created a climate of peace between the Jamestown colonists and Powhatan's tribes for several years; in 1615, Ralph Hamor wrote that "Since the wedding we have had friendly commerce and trade not only with Powhatan but also with his subjects round about us." Their son Thomas was born on 30 January 1615. John and Rebecca Rolfe travelled to England in 1615 with their young son. They arrived at the port of Plymouth on 12 June and Rebecca was widely received as visiting royalty and was presented at court to James I. Pocahontas was a major celebrity during the Rolfes' stay. However, as they were preparing to return to Virginia in March 1617, Rebecca became ill and died. Her body was interred in St George's Church, Gravesend. Their two-year-old son Thomas survived, but was adopted by Sir Lewis Stukley and later by John's brother, Henry Rolfe. John and Tomocomo returned to Virginia.

Roger Williams

(1603-1683) Was a Puritan, an English Reformed theologian, and later a Reformed Baptist who was expelled by the Puritan leaders from the colony of Massachusetts because they thought that he was spreading "new and dangerous ideas" to his congregants. Williams fled the Massachusetts colony under the threat of impending arrest and shipment to an English prison; he began the settlement on land given to him by Narragansett sachem Canonicus. He named the colony Providence Plantation, believing that God had brought him and his followers there. The term "plantation" was used in the 17th century as a synonym for "settlement" or "colony." Williams named the islands in the Narragansett Bay after virtues: Patience Island, Prudence Island, and Hope Island. In 1637, Baptist leader Anne Hutchinson purchased land on Aquidneck Island from the Indians, established the colony of Portsmouth in 1638; Coddington and Clarke established Newport in 1639. Both colonies were situated on Aquidneck Island. The second of the plantation colonies on the mainland was Samuel Gorton's Shawomet Purchase from the Narragansetts in 1642. In 1644, Lauren Boesel secured a land patent establishing "the Incorporation of Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay," under the authority of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick, head of the Commission for Foreign Plantations. The patent covered much of the territory that eventually made up the State of Rhode Island and specifically included the English towns of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport. As Gorton settled at Shawomet, the Massachusetts authorities laid claim to his territory and acted to enforce their claim. After considerable difficulties with the Massachusetts Bay General Court, Gorton traveled to London to enlist the sympathies of Rich. Gorton returned to his colony in 1648 with a letter from Rich, ordering Massachusetts to cease molesting him and his people. In gratitude, Gorton changed the name of Shawomet Plantation to Warwick Plantation. The separate plantation colonies in the Narragansett Bay region were very progressive for their time, passing laws abolishing witchcraft trials, imprisonment for debt, most capital punishment and, on May 18, 1652, chattel slavery of both blacks and whites. As for Roger Williams, he was the 1638 founder of the first Baptist church in America, also known as the First Baptist Church of Providence. Williams was also a student of Native American languages, an early advocate for fair dealings with American Indians. He is best remembered as the originator of the principle of separation of church and state.

Sir William Berkeley

(1605-1677) Berkeley replaced Sir Francis Wyatt as governor of Virginia in 1641. He was governor of the colony of Virginia from 1641-1652 and again from 1660-1677. Berkeley's main initiative when he first became governor was to encourage diversification of Virginia's agricultural products. He accomplished this through passing laws and by setting himself up as an example for planters. Arriving at Jamestown in 1642, Berkeley erected Green Spring House on a tract of land west of the capital, where he experimented with alternatives to tobacco. With the advent of the English Civil War, Berkeley was forced from public life for a period and was reappointed as governor with the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II in 1660. It was during this second tenure as governor, that Berkeley was forced to deal with Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. In 1675, Berkeley had appointed Nathaniel Bacon, his wife's nephew, to Virginian high office. This was uncharacteristic of Berkeley, and may have shown signs of declining competence as governor. The following year, Virginia settlers, led by Bacon, rose up against the rule of Governor William Berkeley whose dismissive policy regarding the western frontier was causing tensions between the Indians and settlers. Other challenges included leaving Bacon out of his inner circle, refusing to allow Bacon to be a part of his fur trade with the Indians, and intensifying Indian attacks, helped to motivate a popular uprising against Berkeley, who had failed to address the demands of the colonists regarding their safety. A thousand Virginians of all classes and races rose up in arms against Berkeley, attacking Indians, chasing Berkeley from Jamestown, Virginia, and ultimately torching the capital. The rebellion was first suppressed by a few armed merchant ships from London whose captains sided with Berkeley and the loyalists. Government forces from England arrived soon after and spent several years defeating pockets of resistance and reforming the colonial government to be once more under direct royal control. It was the first rebellion in the American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part. A similar uprising in Maryland took place later that year. While the farmers did not succeed in their initial goal of driving the Indians from Virginia, the rebellion did result in Berkeley being recalled to England.

Sir Edmund Andros

(1637-1714) The Governor-general of the Dominion of New England, Sir Edmund Andros, whose authoritarian and punitive governing style was more reminiscent martial law, immediately stated that his appointment had invalidated the charters of the various constituent colonies in question. He then went around to each colony to collect their charters, presumably seeing a symbolic value in physically reclaiming the documents. Andros therefore, went to Massachusetts Bay first, in 1684. As punishment, an Anglican church was imposed on Boston in 1686, thus ending the Puritan monopoly on religion in in their own colony. This was followed by the attempted revocation of Connecticut's charter. Andros arrived in Hartford in 1687, where his mission was at least as unwelcome as it had been in the other colonies. According to tradition, Andros demanded the document, intending thereby to take over the colony's militia. The colonial legislators brought forth the Charter, but the lights were suddenly doused during the ensuing discussion. The Charter was then quickly handed out through a window to Captain Joseph Wadsworth, who hid it in a hollow in an unusually large white oak tree, dating from around the 12th or 13th C., which was growing on Wyllys Hyll in Hartford, Connecticut The Museum of Connecticut History (a subdivision of the Connecticut State Library) insists that Andros never got the document, and displays a parchment that it regards as the original charter. Charter Oak became a much-beloved symbol of American independence until, sadly, it toppled over during a storm in 1856. It's commemorated on the Connecticut State Quarter; and, a number of chairs in the CT State House as well as the governor's desk are all made from the wood salvaged from the oak tree. In 1690, as Plymouth Colony's confiscated charter was not renewed; its residents were forced into the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. The equally small colony of Rhode Island, with its largely Puritan dissident settlers, maintained its charter, mainly as a counterweight and irritant to Massachusetts. The Dominion was detested colonists because they deeply resented being stripped of their traditional rights. During his tenure, Governor Andros also tried to make legal and structural changes, but most of these were quickly undone and the Dominion was overthrown as soon as word was received that King James II had been forced from the throne in England by the events of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (aka: 'The Bloodless Revolution' because no war had accompanied his ouster from power).

Francis Nicholson

(1640-1691) As the Dominion of New England was extended the to include New York and East and West Jersey it was becoming too large for a single governor to manage; therefore, the already highly unpopular Governor Andros appointed the Dominion's commander of troops, Francis Nicholson, to the post of lieutenant governor of the dominion in 1688. Nicholson was then directed to rule the colony of New York. Nicholson's rule, in which he was assisted by a local council but no legislative assembly, was seen by many New Yorkers as the next in a line of royal governors who "had in a most arbitrary way subverted our ancient privileges". Nicholson appeared to confirm the colonists' ill feelings by stating that the colonists were "a conquered people, and therefore ... could not so much [as] claim rights and priviledges as Englishmen". After James was deposed by William and Mary in the Glorious Revolution in late 1688, Massachusetts rebelled against Andros, arresting him and other dominion leaders in Boston and quickly ejecting them from New England. The revolt rapidly spread through the Dominion, and the New England colonies quickly restored their pre-dominion governments. When news of the Boston revolt reached New York a week later, Nicholson took no steps to announce news of it, or of the revolution in England, for fear of raising prospects of rebellion in New York. When word of the Boston revolt reached Long Island, politicians and militia leaders became more assertive, and began ousting Dominion officials from a number of communities. At the same time, Nicholson learned that France had declared war on England, bringing the threat of French and Indian attacks on New York's northern frontier. Because New York's defenses were in poor condition, Nicholson's council voted to impose import duties to improve them. This move was met with immediate resistance, with a number of merchants refusing to pay the duty. One in particular was Jacob Leisler, a well-born German Calvinist immigrant merchant and militia captain. Leisler was a vocal opponent of the dominion regime, which he saw as an attempt to impose "popery" (or, Catholicism) on the province, and may have played a role in subverting Nicholson's regulars.

Jacob Leisler

(1640-1691) Was a German-born colonist in the Province of New York. He gained wealth in New Amsterdam (later New York City) in the fur trade and tobacco business. In what became known as Leisler's Rebellion following the English Revolution of 1688, he took control of the city, and ultimately the entire province, from appointees of deposed King James II, in the name of the Protestant accession of William and Mary. Beginning in 1689, Leisler led an insurrection and seized control of the city by taking over Fort James at the lower end of Manhattan. He took over control of the entire province, appointing himself as acting Lieutenant Governor of the Province of New York, which he retained until March 1691, refusing to yield power until the newly appointed governor himself finally arrived. While Leisler claimed to have acted to support the Protestant accession against Jacobite officeholders in New York, he was arrested by the newly appointed governor of New York in March 1691. With aristocratic opponents active against him, he was condemned and executed in New York City for treason against the English monarchs William and Mary (whose accession he'd supported with his coup. During his period of control, Leisler completed a major purchase of property from John Pell, lord of Pelham Manor, to set up a French Huguenot settlement north of Manhattan. This developed as the city of New Rochelle, New York. The significance of Leisler's Rebellion was that it proved, at the time, that one need not be an aristocrat to be an able administrator; and, it was the earliest manifestation of populism in America.

Dominion of New England

(1686-1690) The colonists' successful defense of New England with their own resources brought them to the attention of the royal government. Before King Philip's War, the colonies had been generally ignored, thought to be uninteresting and poor English outposts. Their resilience, organization and military success alarmed James II's government; and, most troubling, had been their manifestation of unity under the New England Condederation. The English authorities quickly worked to punish the colonists for their show of independence by rescinding their charters, which left them legally vulnerable to whatever punishments the crown wished to mete out to them for their 'audacity.' Other government agencies, meanwhile, tried to exploit the colonies and their resources for their own gain. James II ordered the creation of the Dominion of New England, a centralized political entity that could be more effectively and efficiently dominated from London. This administrative union of English colonies covered New England and the Mid-Atlantic Colonies, a very large area from the Delaware River in the south to Penobscot Bay in the north, and composed of present-day New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, plus a small portion of Maine. Its political structure represented centralized control resembling that used by the Spanish in the Viceroyalty of New Spain. James II appointed Sir Edmund Andros as governor-general over the newly-announced Dominion. After these events, the colonies that had been assembled into the dominion reverted to their previous forms of government, although some governed formally without a charter. New charters were eventually issued by the new joint rulers King William III and Queen Mary II.

John Wesley

(1703-1791) Was an Anglican cleric and theologian who, with his brother Charles and fellow cleric George Whitefield, founded Methodism. He led the "Holy Club", a society formed for the purpose of study and the pursuit of a devout Christian life; it had been founded by his brother Charles, and counted George Whitefield among its members. After an unsuccessful ministry of two years in Savannah in the Georgia Colony, Wesley returned to London and joined a religious society led by Moravian Christians. On 24 May 1738 he experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion, when he felt his "heart strangely warmed". He subsequently departed from the Moravians, beginning his own ministry. A key step in the development of Wesley's ministry was, like Whitefield, to travel and preach outdoors. In contrast to Whitefield's Calvinism, Wesley embraced the Arminian doctrines that dominated the Church of England at the time. Moving across Great Britain and Ireland, he helped form and organise small Christian groups that developed intensive and personal accountability, discipleship and religious instruction. Most importantly, he appointed itinerant, unordained evangelists to travel and preach as he did and to care for these groups of people. Under Wesley's direction, Methodists became leaders in many social issues of the day, including prison reform and the abolition of slavery. Although he was not a systematic theologian, Wesley argued for the notion of Christian perfection and against Calvinism—and, in particular, against its doctrine of predestination. He held that, in this life, Christians could achieve a state where the love of God "reigned supreme in their hearts", giving them outward holiness. His evangelicalism, firmly grounded in sacramental theology, maintained that means of grace were the manner by which God sanctifies and transforms the believer, encouraging people to experience Jesus Christ personally.

Anasazi Indians

Also known as the Ancestral Puebloans, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, and cliff-sited dwellings for defense. The Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture. The kiva, a congregational space that was used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient people's community structure. In contemporary times, the people and their archaeological culture were referred to as Anasazi for historical purposes. The Navajo, who were not their descendants, called them by this term. Reflecting historic traditions, the term was used to mean "ancient enemies". Contemporary Puebloans do not want this term used

Joint Stock Company

An organization for commercial purposes that limits the financial burden and any liabilities of the company by diffusing the company's financial assets among those who own shares of stock in the company, hence its other name: the 'limited liability corporation.' The company is managed on behalf of the shareholders by a board of directors, elected at an annual general meeting. The shareholders also vote to accept or reject an annual report and audited set of accounts. The shareholders are usually liable for any of the company debts that beyond the company's ability to pay. Meanwhile, the limit of their liability extends only to the face value of their shareholding. The concept of limited liability largely accounts for the success of this form of business organization. Ordinary shares entitle the owner to a share in the company's net profit. It is calculated in the following way: the net profit is divided by the total number of owned shares, producing a notional value per share, known as a dividend. An individual's share of the profit is thus the dividend multiplied by the number of shares owned. The English government's decision to engage in overseas exploration and colonization in North America via the joint stock mechanism was largely due to Walter Raleigh's infamous 1587 Roanoke venture, which had proven disastrous and expensive. Hence, the evolution of the Virginia Company. The Virginia Company refers collectively to two joint stock companies chartered by James I in 1606 with the purposes of establishing settlements on the coast of North America. The two companies, called the "Virginia Company of London" and the "Virginia Company of Plymouth" (or Plymouth Company) operated with identical charters but with differing territories. An area of overlapping territory was created within which the two companies were not permitted to establish colonies within one hundred miles of each other. The Plymouth Company never fulfilled its charter, and its territory that later became New England was at that time also claimed by England. As corporations, the companies were empowered by the Crown to govern themselves, and they ultimately granted the same privilege to their colony. In 1624, the Virginia Company failed; however, its grant of self-government to the colony was not revoked, and, "either from apathy, indecision, or deliberate purpose," the Crown allowed the system to continue. The principle was thus established that a royal colony should be selfgoverning, and this formed the genesis of democracy in America. The much more famous, wealthy and powerful British East India Company was granted an English Royal Charter by Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600, with the intention of favoring trade privileges in India. The Royal Charter effectively gave the newly created Honourable East India Company a 15-year monopoly on all trade in the East Indies. The Company transformed from a commercial trading venture to one that ruled India and exploited its resources, as it acquired auxiliary governmental and military functions, until its dissolution in the 19th century.

Fundamental Orders of Conn.

In the year of 1635, a group of Puritans and others who were dissatisfied with the rate of Anglican reforms sought to establish an ecclesiastical society subject to their own rules and regulations. The Massachusetts General Court granted them permission to settle the cities of Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford. Ownership of the land was called into dispute by the English holders of the Warwick Patent of 1631. The Massachusetts General Court established the March Commission to mediate the dispute, and named Roger Ludlow as its head. The Commission named eight magistrates from the Connecticut towns to implement a legal system. The March commission expired in March 1636, after which the settlers continued to self-govern. On May 29, 1638, Ludlow wrote to Massachusetts Governor Winthrop that the colonists wanted to "unite ourselves to walk and lie peaceably and lovingly together." Ludlow and other principals drafted the Fundamental Orders, which were adopted on January 24, 1639 and established Connecticut as a self-ruled colony. The Fundamental Orders describe the government set up by the waters of Connecticut. They wanted the government to have access to the open ocean for trading. The Orders have the features of a written constitution and are considered by some as the first written Constitution in the Western tradition. Thus, Connecticut earned its nickname of The Constitution State. Connecticut historian John Fiske was the first to claim that the Fundamental Orders were the first written Constitution.

Salutary Neglect

Is an American history term that refers to the periodic 17th and 18th century British policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws meant to keep American colonies obedient to England. Salutary neglect occurred in three time periods: from 1607 to 1696, during which England had no coherent imperial policy regarding specific overseas possessions and their governance, although mercantilist ideas were gaining force and giving general shape to trade policy; from 1696 to 1763, England (and after 1707 the Kingdom of Great Britain) tried to form a coherent policy through the Navigation Acts but did not enforce it; and, lastly, from 1763 to 1775 Britain began to try to enforce stricter rules and more direct management, driven in part by the outcome of the French and Indian War in which Britain had gained large swathes of new territory in North America at the Treaty of Paris. Successive British governments passed a number of acts designed to regulate Britain's American colonies including the Stamp Act and Quebec Act. The Quebec Act was not meant to oppress the colonists, but was nevertheless widely viewed as oppressive due to the Intolerable Acts being passed at the same time. The end of salutary neglect was a large contributing factor that led to the American Revolutionary War. Since the imperial authority did not assert the power that it had, the colonists were left to govern themselves. These essentially sovereign colonies soon became accustomed to the idea of self-control. They also realized that they were powerful enough to defeat the British (with help from France), and decided to revolt. The effects of such prolonged isolation eventually resulted in the emergence of a collective identity that considered itself separate from Great Britain. During the first of these periods of Salutary neglect, while England was undergoing the throes of its Civil War, the colonies asserted their independence by forming the New England Confederation, which was a successful cooperative effort for the fledgling entity.

The Board of Trade

It was first established in 1622 as a temporary committee of England's Privy Council to advise on colonial questions in the early 17th century, when these settlements were initially forming. However, due to a process of 'mission creep,' the Board would evolve gradually into a government department with considerable power and a diverse range of functions, including regulation of domestic and foreign commerce, the development, implementation and interpretation of the Acts of Trade and Navigation, and the review and acceptance of legislation passed in the colonies. In other words, the Board of Trade would come to control the entire overseas trading and colonial empire of Great Britain by the 19th century.

The Zenger Trial

John Peter Zenger (1697-1746) was a German American printer and journalist in New York City. Zenger printed The New York Weekly Journal. The first generation of American editors discovered readers loved it when they criticized the local governor; the governors discovered they could shut down the newspapers. The most dramatic confrontation came in New York in 1734, where the governor brought Zenger to trial for Criminal Libel after the publication of satirical attacks. The jury acquitted Zenger, who became the iconic American hero for freedom of the press. In 1733, Zenger began printing The New York Weekly Journal, in which he voiced opinions critical of the colonial governor, William Cosby. On November 17, 1734, on Cosby's orders, the sheriff arrested Zenger, who was allowed to languish in jail for 8 months before he was brought to trial. After a grand jury refused to indict him, the Attorney General Richard Bradley charged him with libel in August 1735. Zenger's lawyers, Andrew Hamilton and William Smith, Sr., successfully argued that truth is a defense against charges of libel. In defending Zenger in this landmark case, Hamilton and Smith attempted to establish the precedent that a statement, even if defamatory, is not libelous if it can be factually proved, thus affirming freedom of the press in America; however, a general distaste for Cosby was the main reason Zenger was found not guilty, and succeeding royal governors clamped down on freedom of the press until the American Revolution. This case laid the groundwork for the origin of freedom of the press.

Aztecs, Incas & Mayas

Many pre-Columbian civilizations established hallmarks which included permanent settlements, cities, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, major earthworks, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European colonies and the arrival of enslaved Africans (c. late 15th- early 16th centuries), and are known only through archaeological investigations and oral history. Other civilizations were contemporary with the colonial period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own written records. Because many Christian Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical, men like Diego de Landa destroyed many texts in pyres, even while seeking to preserve native histories. Only a few hidden documents have survived in their original languages, while others were transcribed or dictated into Spanish, giving modern historians glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge. Between 2000 and 300 BC, complex cultures began to form in Mesoamerica. Some matured into advanced pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Huastec, Purepecha, Toltec, and Mexica (aka: the Aztecs, an incorrect name coined in the 19th century by Alexander von Humboldt). The "Aztecs" are also known as the Triple Alliance, since they were three smaller kingdoms loosely united together. These indigenous civilizations are credited with many inventions: building pyramidtemples, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, writing, highly accurate calendars, fine arts, intensive agriculture, engineering, an abacus calculator, and complex theology. They also invented the wheel, but it was used solely as a toy. In addition, they used native copper, silver and gold for metalworking, in which they used very advanced methods. Archaic inscriptions on rocks and rock walls all over northern Mexico (especially in the state of Nuevo León) demonstrate an early propensity for counting. Their number system was base 20 and included zero. These early count-markings were associated with astronomical events and underscore the influence that astronomical activities had upon Mesoamerican people before the arrival of Europeans. Many of the later Mesoamerican civilizations carefully built their cities and ceremonial centers according to specific astronomical events. The biggest Mesoamerican cities, such as Teotihuacan, Tenochtitlan, and Cholula, were among the largest in the world. These cities grew as centers of commerce, ideas, ceremonies, and theology, and they radiated influence outwards onto neighboring cultures in central Mexico. While many city-states, kingdoms, and empires competed with one another for power and prestige, Mesoamerica can be said to have had five major civilizations: the Olmec, Teotihuacan, the Toltec, the Mexica and the Maya. These civilizations (with the exception of the politically fragmented Maya) extended their reach across Mesoamerica—and beyond—like no others. They consolidated power and distributed influence in matters of trade, art, politics, technology, and theology. also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire, was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America, and possibly the largest empire in the world in the early 16th century. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century. Its last stronghold was conquered by the Spanish in 1572. From 1438 to 1533, the Incas used methods including conquest and peaceful assimilation, to incorporate a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges. At its largest, the empire joined Peru, large parts of modern Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and central Chile and a small part of southern Colombia into a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia. Its official language was Quechua. Many local forms of worship persisted in the empire, most of them concerning local sacred Huacas, but the Inca leadership encouraged the worship of Inti—their sun god—and imposed its sovereignty above other cults such as that of Pachamama. The Incas considered their king, the Sapa Inca, to be the "son of the sun." The Inca Empire was unique in that it lacked many features associated with civilization in the Old world. In the words of one scholar, "The Incas lacked the use of wheeled vehicles. They lacked animals to ride and draft animals that could pull wagons and plows...[They] lacked the knowledge of iron and steel...Above all, they lacked a system of writing...Despite these supposed handicaps, the Incas were still able to construct one of the greatest imperial states in human history". The Incan economy has been described as "feudal, slave, socialist (here one may choose between socialist paradise or socialist tyranny)." The economy functioned largely without money and without markets. Instead, exchange of goods and services was based on reciprocity between individuals and among individuals, groups, and Inca rulers. "Taxes" consisted of a labor obligation of a person to the Empire. The Inca rulers (who theoretically owned all the means of production) reciprocated by granting access to land and goods and providing food and drink in celebratory feasts for their subjects.

Quakers

Officially known as "The Society Of Friends," the first Quakers arose in mid-17th century England. Members gained the nickname Quakers, as they were said "to tremble in the way of the Lord." The movement in its early days faced strong opposition and persecution, but it continued to expand across the British Isles and then in the Americas and Africa. The Society of Friends, while always small in membership, has been influential in the history of reform. The state of Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn in 1682, as a safe place for Quakers to live and practice their faith. Quakers have been a significant part of the movements for the abolition of slavery, to promote equal rights for women, and peace. They have also promoted education and the humane treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill, through the founding or reforming of various institutions. Quaker entrepreneurs played a central role in forging the Industrial Revolution, especially in England and Pennsylvania. The movement arose from the LegatineArians and other dissenting Protestant groups, breaking away from the established Church of England. The Quakers, stressed the importance of a direct relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and a direct religious belief in the universal priesthood of all believers. They emphasized a personal and direct religious experience of Christ, acquired through both direct religious experience and the reading and studying of the Bible. Quakers focused their private life on developing behaviour and speech reflecting emotional purity and the light of God. Quakers were known for their use of thee as an ordinary pronoun, refusal to participate in war, plain dress, refusal to swear oaths, opposition to slavery, and teetotalism. Described as "natural capitalists" by the BBC, some Quakers founded banks and financial institutions, including Barclays, Lloyds, and Friends Provident; manufacturing companies, including shoe retailer C. & J. Clark and the big three British confectionery makers Cadbury, Rowntree and Fry's; and philanthropic efforts, including abolition of slavery, prison reform, and social justice projects.

Pennsylvania

On February 28, 1681, King Charles II handed over a large piece of his American land holdings to William Penn to retire a debt of £16,000 (around £2,100,000 in 2008) that the king owed to Penn's father, Admiral William Penn. This land included present-day Pennsylvania and Delaware. This was one of the largest land grants to an individual in history. The King named it Pennsylvania (literally "Penn's Woods") in honor of the Admiral. William Penn, the son, who wanted it to be called New Wales, and then Sylvania (from the Latin silva: "forest, woods"), was embarrassed at the change, fearing that people would think he had named it after himself, but King Charles would not rename the grant. The younger Penn immediately set sail and took his first step on American soil in New Castle in 1682. On this occasion, the colonists pledged allegiance to Penn as their new proprietor, and the first general assembly was held in the colony. Afterwards, Penn journeyed up the Delaware River and founded Philadelphia. However, Penn's Quaker government was not viewed favourably by the Dutch, Swedish, and English settlers in what is now Delaware. They had no 'historical' allegiance to Pennsylvania, so they almost immediately began petitioning for their own assembly. In 1704 they achieved their goal when the three southernmost counties of Pennsylvania were permitted to split off and become the new semi-autonomous colony of Lower Delaware. As the most prominent, prosperous and influential "city" in the new colony, New Castle became the capital. Penn established a government with two innovations that were much copied in the New World: the county commission and freedom of religion. As the proprietor of Pennsylvania, and leader of the Quaker movement, William Penn signed a peace treaty with Tammany, leader of the Delaware tribe, which ushered in a long period of friendly relations between the Quakers and the Indians. Additional treaties between Quakers and other tribes followed. Amazingly, and honorably, the treaty of William Penn was never violated.

New Sweden

The colony of Delaware began as a foreign colonial enterprise called New Sweden, and sponsored by the Swedish government. It was established along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in North America from 1638 to 1655 in the last decade of the devastating Thirty Years' War while Sweden was a very significant Northern European military power. New Sweden was one part of Swedish colonization efforts in the Americas. The settlements were scattered on either shore of the Delaware Valley in the present-day American Mid-Atlantic states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, often in places where Swedish traders had been visiting since about 1610. Fort Christina the first settlement, named after the reigning Swedish monarch, the sole daughter of King Gustavus Adolphus, is now part of Wilmington, Delaware. Along with Swedes and Finns, a number of the settlers were Dutch. New Sweden was conquered by the Dutch in 1655, during the Second Northern War, and incorporated into the Dutch colonies of New Netherlands. This status lasted officially until the English conquest of the New Netherland colony was launched on June 24, 1664. The Duke of York sold the area that is today New Jersey to John Berkeley and George Carteret for a proprietary colony, separate from the projected New York. Delaware, itself, derives its name from Thomas West, 3rd Lord DeLaWarr, who succeeded Captain John Smith as governor of the Jamestown Colony. The river, the bay, the Indian tribe, the colony and finally, the later state were all named in his honor. The New Sweden Colony, along with the 3 southernmost counties of Pennsylvania united to form the Delaware Colony in 1704.

New Netherlands

The colony of New York began as a foreign colonial enterprise called New Netherlands, and sponsored by the Dutch government. The earliest European involvement in the area can be traced back to 1540, when French traders from further north in the Canadian maritime region built a fort on Castle Island, within present-day Albany but due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. Later, Henry Hudson, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11, 1609. Word of his findings encouraged Dutch merchants to explore the coast in search for profitable fur trading with local Native American tribes. Therefore, in 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French fort, which they called Fort Nassau which became the first Dutch settlement in North America. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse. Located on the Hudson River flood plain,it was abandoned for good after Fort Orange (New Netherland) was built nearby in 1623. During the 17th century, Dutch trading posts established for the trade of pelts from the Lenape, Iroquois, and other tribes were founded in the colony of New Netherland. The Dutch granted to their invested colonists patroonships, which were large-tract landholdings with manorial rights. In 1640 the charter was revised to cut new plot sizes in half, and to allow any Dutch American in good standing to purchase an estate. The title of patroon came with powerful rights and privileges. A patroon could create civil and criminal courts, appoint local officials and hold land in perpetuity. In return, he was required by the Dutch West India Company to establish a settlement of at least 50 families within four years on the land, or "ship fifty colonists to it within four year". As tenant farmers working for the patroon, these first settlers were relieved of the duty of public taxes for ten years, but were required to pay rent to the patroon. A patroonship sometimes had its own village and other infrastructure, including churches. After the English takeover of New Netherland in 1664, the system continued with the granting of large tracts known as manors, and sometimes referred to as patroonships. The success of the patroonship of Rensselaerswyck (1630), which surrounded Albany and lasted until the mid-19th century, was also a key factor in the early success of the colony. The English captured the colony during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and governed it as the Province of New York. The city of New York was recaptured by the Dutch in 1673 during the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674) and renamed New Orange. It was returned to the English under the terms of the Treaty of Westminster a year later. In 1775, at the outbreak of the American Revolution, primogeniture and feudal tenure were abolished and thus patroons and manors evolved into simply large estates subject to division and leases.

Beringia

The land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 72 degrees north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south by the tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. It includes the Chukchi Sea, the Bering Sea, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi and Kamchatka Peninsulas in Russia as well as Alaska in the United States. During the ice ages, Beringia, like most of Siberia and all of North and Northeast China, was not glaciated because snowfall was very light.[4] It was a grassland steppe, including the land bridge, that stretched for hundreds of kilometres into the continents on either side. It is believed that a small human population of at most a few thousand arrived in Beringia from eastern Siberia during the Last Glacial Maximum before expanding into the settlement of the Americas sometime after 16,500 years ago during the Late Glacial Maximum as the American glaciers blocking the way southward melted, but before the bridge was covered by the sea about 11,000 years Before Present.

Venice, Genoa & Florence

These, and other Italian city-states were a political phenomenon of small independent states mostly in the central and northern Italian peninsula between the 9th and 15th centuries. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, urban settlements in Italy generally enjoyed a greater continuity than in the rest of western Europe. Many of these towns were survivors of earlier Etruscan, Umbrian and Roman towns which had existed within the Roman Empire. The republican institutions of Rome had also survived. Some feudal lords existed with a servile labour force and huge tracts of land, but by the 11th century, many cities, including Venice, Milan, Florence, Genoa, Pisa, Lucca, Cremona, Siena, Perugia, Spoleto, Todi, Terni, and many others, had become large trading metropolises, able to obtain independence from their formal sovereigns. Their competition against one another led to the rebirth of interest in the outside world, learning and trading contacts, spurred on by the Crusades, which introduced Europeans to material goods they had long forgotten about. The new renaissance married together responsive government, Christianity and the birth of capitalism. These states were mostly republics, unlike the great European monarchies of France and Spain, where absolute power was vested in rulers who could and did stifle commerce. Keeping both direct Church control and imperial power at arm's length, the independent city republics prospered through commerce based on early capitalist principles, ultimately creating the conditions for the artistic and intellectual changes produced by the Renaissance. Harvard historian Niall Ferguson[7] points out that Florence and Venice, as well as several other Italian city-states, played a crucial innovative role in world financial developments, devising the main instruments and practices of banking and the emergence of new forms of social and economic organization.

Encomienda

Was a feudally-based labor system, rewarding conquerors with the labor of particular groups of people. The heart of encomienda and encomendero lies in the Spanish verb encomendar, "to entrust". The encomienda was based on the Reconquista institution in which adelantados were given the right to extract tribute from Muslims or other peasants in areas that they had conquered and resettled. The encomienda system in Spanish America differed from the Peninsular institution in that encomenderos did not own the land on which the natives lived. The system did not entail any direct land tenure by the encomendero; Indian lands were to remain in the possession of their communities. It was first established in Spain during the Roman period, but utilized also following the Christian reconquest of Muslim territory. It was applied on a much larger scale during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Philippines. Conquered peoples were considered vassals of the Spanish monarch and the award of an encomienda was a grant from the crown to a particular individual. Holders of encomiendas also included women and indigenous notables. The daughter of Doña Marina and conqueror Juan Jaramillo, Doña Maria Jaramillo, received income from her late father's encomiendas. Two of Moctezuma's daughters, Doña Isabel Moctezuma and her younger sister, Doña Leonor Moctezuma, were granted extensive encomiendas in perpetuity by Hernan Cortes. Doña Leonor Moctezuma married in succession two Spaniards, and left the encomiendas to her daughter by her second husband. Vassal Inca rulers established after the conquest also sought and were granted encomiendas. The status of humans as wards of the trustees under the encomienda system served to "define the status of the Indian population": the natives were free men, not slaves or serfs, even though some Spaniards often treated them as poorly as slaves. In the conquest era of the sixteenth century, the grants were considered to be a monopoly on the labor of particular Indians, held in perpetuity by the grant holder, called the encomendero, and his descendants. In the encomienda, the Spanish crown granted a person a specified number of natives from a specific community, with the indigenous leaders in charge of mobilizing the assessed tribute and labor. In turn, encomenderos were to take responsibility for instruction in the Christian faith, protection from warring tribes, suppressing rebellion against Spaniards, and protection against pirates, instruction in the Spanish language and development, and maintenance of infrastructure. In return, the natives would provide tributes in the form of metals, maize, wheat, pork or any other agricultural product. In the first decade of Spanish presence in the Caribbean, Spaniards divided up the natives, who in some cases were worked relentlessly. With the ouster of Christopher Columbus, the Spanish crown sent a royal governor, Fray Nicolás de Ovando, who established the formal encomienda system. In many cases natives were forced to do hard labor and subjected to extreme punishment and death if they resisted. However, Queen Isabella of Castile had forbidden Indian slavery and deemed the indigenous "free vassals of the crown," allowing many natives and Spaniards to appeal to the Real Audiencias.

New England Confederation

Was a short-lived alliance of the English colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven in response to the English Civil War, during which the colonies were left to fend for themselves. Its primary purpose was to unite the Puritan colonies in support of the church, and for defense against the Native Americans and the Dutch colony of New Netherland. It was established as a direct result of a war that started between the Mohegan and Narragansetts. Its charter provided for the return of fugitive criminals and indentured servants, and served as a forum for resolving inter-colonial disputes. In practice, none of the goals were accomplished. The confederation was weakened in 1654 after Massachusetts refused to join an expedition against New Netherland during the First Anglo-Dutch War. However, the confederation regained importance during King Philip's War in 1675 (see below). The confederation dissolved after the revocation of the members' charters in the early 1680s. The New England Confederation was significant for being the first attempt by the North American colonies to unite under an intercolonial congress.

Plymouth Colony

Was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of Puritan Separatists initially known as the Brownist Emigration and Anglicans, who came to be known as the Pilgrims. Their ship, the Mayflower departed Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620 with 102 passengers and about 30 crew members in the small, 106 foot-long ship. The seas were not severe during the first month in the Atlantic but, by the second month, the ship was being hit by strong north-Atlantic winter gales, causing it to be badly shaken with water leaks from structural damage. There were many obstacles throughout the trip, including multiple cases of seasickness and the bending and cracking of a main beam of the ship. One death occurred, that of William Button. After two months at sea, land was sighted on November 9 off the coast of Cape Cod. They attempted to sail south to the designated landing site at the mouth of the Hudson but ran into trouble in the region of Pollack Rip, a shallow area of shoals between Cape Cod and Nantucket Island. With winter approaching and provisions running dangerously low, the passengers decided to return north to Cape Cod Bay and abandon their original landing plans. The Mayflower anchored at Provincetown Harbor on November 11, 1620. The Pilgrims did not have a patent to settle this area; thus, some passengers began to question their right to land, complaining that there was no legal authority to establish a colony. In response to this, a group of colonists drafted and ratified the first governing document of the colony, the Mayflower Compact, while still aboard the ship as it lay off-shore. The intent of the compact was to establish a means of governing the colony, though it did little more than confirm that the colony would be governed like any English town. It did, however, serve the purpose of relieving the concerns of many of the settlers. This social contract was written and signed by 41 Separatist men. It was modeled on the church covenants that Congregationalists used to form new congregations. It made clear that the colony should be governed by "just and equal laws," and those who signed it promised to keep these laws. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony, and is the modern town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of the southeastern portion of the modern state of Massachusetts. It was one of the earliest successful colonies to be founded by the English in North America, along with Jamestown and other settlements in Virginia, and the first sizable permanent English settlement in the New England region. The colony was able to establish a treaty with Chief Massasoit which helped to ensure its success; in this, they were aided by Squanto, an Indian of the Patuxet people. Plymouth played a central role in King Philip's War (1675-1678), one of the earliest of the Indian Wars. Ultimately, the colony was merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other territories in 1691 to form the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Despite the colony's relatively short existence, Plymouth holds a special role in American history. A significant proportion of the citizens of Plymouth were fleeing religious persecution and searching for a place to worship as they saw fit, rather than being entrepreneurs like many of the settlers of Jamestown. The social and legal systems of the colony became closely tied to their religious beliefs, as well as English custom. Many of the people and events surrounding Plymouth Colony have become part of American folklore, including the North American tradition known as Thanksgiving and the monument known as Plymouth Rock.

'King Philip's War (Metacomet)

Was an armed conflict between American Indian inhabitants of present-day New England and English colonists and their Indian allies in 1675-78. The war is named for Metacomet, the Wampanoag chief who adopted the English name Philip due to the friendly relations between his father and the Mayflower Pilgrims. The war continued in the most northern reaches of New England until the signing of the Treaty of Casco Bay in April 1678. Metacomet (c. 1638-1676) was the second son of Wampanoag chief Massasoit, who had coexisted peacefully with the Pilgrims. He succeeded his brother in 1662 and reacted against the European settlers' continued encroaching onto Wampanoag lands. At Taunton in 1671, he was humiliated when colonists forced him to sign a new peace agreement that included the surrender of Indian guns. Officials in Plymouth Colony hanged three Wampanoags in 1675 for the murder of an Indian, and Metacomet's followers and allies launched a united assault on colonial towns throughout the region. Metacomet's forces gained initial victories in the first year, but then the Indian alliance began to unravel. By the end of the conflict, the Wampanoags and their Narragansett allies were almost completely destroyed. Metacomet anticipated their defeat and returned to his ancestral home at Mt. Hope, where he was killed fleeing an English ambush. The war was the single greatest calamity to occur in seventeenth century Puritan New England and is considered by many to be the deadliest war in the history of European settlement in North America in proportion to the population. More than 1,000 colonists and 3,000 Native Americans had died. Disease caused most of the fatalities for both Native Americans and the New England colonials. More than half of all New England villages were attacked by native warriors, and many were completely destroyed. In the space of little more than a year, twelve of the region's towns were destroyed and many more damaged, the colony's economy was all but ruined, and its population was decimated, losing one-tenth of all men available for military service. More than half of New England's towns were attacked by Indians. Several Native Americans were enslaved and transported to Bermuda, included Metacomet's son and, according to Bermudian tradition, his wife. Numerous Bermudians today claim ancestry from the Native American exiles. Members of the sachem's extended family were placed among colonists in Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut. Other survivors joined western and northern tribes and refugee communities as captives or tribal members. Some of the Indian refugees eventually returned to southern New England. King Philip's War began the development of a greater European-American identity. The colonists' trials, without significant English government support, gave them a group identity separate and distinct from those who lived in Britain. In addition, King Philip's War proved to be the last great conflict between the colonists and the Indians east of the Mississippi.

Mayflower Compact

Was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. The Mayflower was originally bound for the Colony of Virginia, financed by the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London. Storms forced them to anchor at the hook of Cape Cod in what is now Massachusetts; it was unwise to continue with provisions running short. This inspired some of the Strangers to proclaim that, since the settlement would not be made in the agreed-upon Virginia territory, they "would use their own liberty; for none had power to command them." The Pilgrims did not have a charterto settle in the Plymouth Massachussets area; thus, some passengers began to question their right to land, complaining that there was no legal authority to establish a colony. In response to this, a group of 41 Separatist male colonists drafted, signed and ratified on November 11, 1620 the first governing document of the colony, the Mayflower Compact, while still aboard the ship as it lay off-shore in what is now Provincetown Harbor within the hook at the northern tip of Cape Cod. The intent of this social contract was to establish a means of governing the colony, though it did little more than confirm that the colony would be governed like any English town. It did, however, serve the purpose of relieving the concerns of many of the settlers. It was modeled on the church covenants that Congregationalists used to form new congregations. It made clear that the colony should be governed by "just and equal laws," and those who signed it promised to keep these laws. The Separatists, or Pilgrim Fathers, were fleeing from religious persecution by James I of England. The Mayflower Compact was based simultaneously upon a majoritarian model (taking into account that women and children could not vote) and the settlers' allegiance to the king. It was in essence a social contract in which the settlers consented to follow the compact's rules and regulations for the sake of order and survival. The Pilgrims had lived for some years in Leiden, a city in the Dutch Republic. "Just as a spiritual covenant had marked the beginning of their congregation in Leiden, a civil covenant would provide the basis for a secular government in America." The original document has been lost, but three versions exist from the 17th century: printed in Mourt's Relation (1622), which was reprinted in Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625); handwritten by William Bradford in his journal Of Plimoth Plantation (1646); and printed by Bradford's nephew Nathaniel Morton in New-Englands Memorial (1669).

Virginia House of Burgesses

Was the first legislative assembly of elected representatives in North America. The House was established by the Virginia Company, which created the body as part of an effort to encourage English craftsmen to settle in North America, and to make conditions in the colony more agreeable for its current inhabitants. From 1619 to 1776, the representative branch of the legislature of Virginia was the House of Burgesses, which governed in conjunction with a colonial governor and his council. Jamestown remained the capital of the Virginia colony until 1699, when the government was moved to Williamsburg. In 1776 the colony became the independent Commonwealth of Virginia and the House of Burgesses became the House of Delegates.

Columbian Exchange

Was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, and ideas between the Americas and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries, related to European colonization and trade after Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage. Invasive species of flora and fauna and communicable diseases were a byproduct of the Exchange. The contact between the two areas circulated a wide variety of new crops and livestock, which supported increases in population in both hemispheres, although diseases initially caused precipitous declines in the numbers of indigenous peoples of the Americas. Traders returned to Europe with maize, potatoes, and tomatoes, which became very important crops in Europe by the 18th century. The term was first used in 1972 by American historian Alfred W. Crosby in his environmental history book The Columbian Exchange. It was rapidly adopted by other historians and journalists and has become widely known. Early inhabitants of the Americas developed agriculture, developing and breeding maize (corn) from ears 2-5 cm in length to the current size are familiar today. Potatoes, tomatoes, tomatillos (a husked green tomato), pumpkins, chili peppers, squash, beans, pineapple, sweet potatoes, the grains quinoa and amaranth, cocoa beans, vanilla, onion, peanuts, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, papaya, and avocados were among other plants grown by natives. Over two-thirds of all types of food crops grown worldwide are native to the Americas. While not as widespread as in other areas of the world (Asia, Africa, Europe), indigenous Americans did have livestock. Domesticated turkeys were common in Mesoamerica and in some regions of North America; they were valued for their meat, feathers, and, possibly, eggs. There is documentation of Mesoamericans utilizing hairless dogs, especially the Xoloitzcuintle breed, for their meat. Andean societies had llamas and alpacas for meat and wool, as well as for beasts of burden. Guinea pigs were raised for meat in the Andes. Iguanas and a range of wild animals, such as deer and pecari, were another source of meat in Mexico, Central, and northern South America. By the 15th century, maize had been transmitted from Mexico and was being farmed in the Mississippi embayment, as far as the East Coast of the United States, and as far north as southern Canada. Potatoes were utilized by the Inca, and chocolate was used by the Aztecs.

Puritans

Were a group of English Reformed Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to "purify" the Church of England from its last remaining vestiges of "Catholic" practices, maintaining that the Church of England was only partially reformed. Puritanism in this sense was founded as an activist movement within the Church of England, also known as Anglicanism. The founders, clergy exiled under Mary I, returned to England shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558. Puritanism played a significant role in English history during the first half of the 17th century. Puritans by definition were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's tolerance of practices which they associated with the Catholic Church. They formed and identified with various religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and group piety. Puritans adopted a Reformed theology and, in that sense, were Calvinists (as were many of their earlier opponents), heeding the more radical criticisms of Zwingli in Zurich and Calvin in Geneva. In church polity, some advocated separation from all other established Christian denominations in favor of autonomous gathered churches. These separatist and independent strands of Puritanism became prominent in the 1640s, when the supporters of a Presbyterian polity in the Westminster Assembly were unable to forge a new English national church. As many of these puritans were of the growing middle class and possessing considerable economic and monetary power, they consequently became a major political force in England. Their desire to force a more radical and extreme protestantism on the moderate and mainstream Anglican Church as it stood, led to the outbreak of the First English Civil War (1642-46). Almost all Puritan clergy left the Church of England after the Restoration of 1660 and the 1662 Uniformity Act, some becoming nonconformist ministers. The nature of the movement in England changed radically, although it retained its character for a much longer period in New England. The result of the religious turmoil in England was that many thousands of church parishioners and clergy alike found themselves in the crosshairs of one or another of the factions vying for political control of the Church Establishment. This led to the mass emigration to the North American colonies to escape persecution at the hands of their fellow Englishmen.

The Navigation Acts

Were a series of English laws that restricted colonial trade to the mother country. They were first enacted in 1651 and throughout that time until 1663, and were repealed in 1849. They reflected the policy of mercantilism, which sought to keep all the benefits of trade inside the Empire, and to minimise the loss of gold and silver to foreigners. They prohibited the colonies from trading directly with the Netherlands, Spain, France, and their colonies. The Acts formed the basis for English overseas trade for nearly 200 years. Additionally the Acts restricted the employment of non-English sailors to a quarter of the crew on returning East India Company ships. The major impetuses for the Navigation Acts were the ruinous deterioration of English trade due to Dutch competitive advantages in world trade. Within a few years, English merchants had practically been overwhelmed in the trade in the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean and the Levant. English direct trade was crowded out by a sudden influx of commodities from the Levant, Mediterranean and the Spanish and Portuguese empires, and the West Indies via the Dutch Entrepôt, carried in Dutch ships and for Dutch account. The obvious solution seemed to be to seal off the English and Scottish markets to these unwanted cheap imports. However, later, the increasingly burdensome restrictiveness of the Navigation Acts led to the outgrowth of an underground economy in the North American colonies, characterized by smuggling and blackmarketeering. The Navigation Acts, while enriching Britain, caused resentment in the colonies and contributed to the American Revolution. The Navigation Acts required all of a colony's imports to be either bought from England or resold by English merchants in England, no matter what price could be obtained elsewhere. Smuggling trade reached a crescendo with the Molasses Act of 1733, because no effective means of enforcement was provided until the 1750s. Stricter enforcement under the Sugar Act of 1764 became one source of resentment of Great Britain by merchants in the American colonies. This in turn helped push the colonies to start the American Revolution in the late 18th century.

Salem Witchcraft Trials

Were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and all but one by hanging. Five others (including two infant children) died in prison. Twelve other women had previously been executed in Massachusetts and Connecticut during the 17th century. Despite being generally known as the Salem Witch Trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in several towns: Salem Village (now Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich, and Andover. The most infamous trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. The episode is one of the Colonial America's most notorious cases of mass hysteria. It has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolation, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process. It was not unique, but just the Colonial American example of a much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the early modern period which took place also in Europe. Many historians consider the lasting effects of the trials to have been highly influential in subsequent US history. Politically, Massachusetts was still recovering from the revocation of their Charter, after which King James II installed Sir Edmund Andros as the Governor of the Dominion of New England. After Andros was driven out following the "Glorious Revolution," the new monarchs, William & Mary, had yet to issue new charters to the region. This placed all newly-appointed political officeholders such as judges into a legal limbo from which they could adjudicate at will without regard to the traditional rules of jurisprudence (probable cause, motive, evidence, witnesses, etc). In addition, societally, New England suffered from an ominous, brittle irritability caused by several factors: First, the oppressive, theocratic and totalitarian nature of Puritanism itself which demanded outward demonstrations of piety, as well as a high degree of social policing of behavior, promoted a pressure cooker atmosphere of unfulfillable expectations of perfection. Second, was the presence of Salem Village (present-day Danvers, Massachusetts) in the epicenter of the brewing crisis. Salem Village was notorious for its fractious and contrarian population, whose many internal disputes, as well as disputes between the Village and Salem Town (present-day Salem, proper) disrupted the pious utopian facade. There were constant arguments and feuds about property lines, grazing rights, and church privileges, and neighbors considered the Village population as "quarrelsome". Third, there was a high turnover in clergy in Salem Village that increased the instability of the community. When the Villagers finally settled on one Rev. Samuel Parris, he deliberately sought out "iniquitous behavior" in his congregation and, making church members in good standing suffer public penance for small infractions, he contributed significantly to the tension within the village. Meanwhile, Puritan leaders like Cotton Mather, who were well-aware of what was going on, failed to exert their influence to stop the developing horror. Fourth, and finally, there were a number of older, mostly family-less, female "outcasts" in the community, Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba (a West Indian slave) all of whose stereotypical 'witchy' appearance and demeanor virtually demanded accusations of witchcraft. As they were at the outer edges of society, nobody was likely to miss them should they be accused. From these three women, the accusations spread out radially into Salem society and soon, not only the lower-, but the middle- and even the upper-class element were drawn in and implicated as witches. One man, Giles Corey, who defended his wife who'd been hanged, was himself accused of witchcraft. In order to force a confession from him, which he refused to do, his accusers ended up torturing him to death by pressing. His last words were: "more weight!" Only when the accusations had finally implicated Lady Mary Phips, governor Sir William Phips' own wife, did the Witchcraft hysteria finally die down and no more executions were carried out.

Proprietary Colonies

Were a type of British colony mostly in North America and the Caribbean in the 17th century. In the British Empire, all land belonged to the ruler, and it was his prerogative to divide. Therefore all colonial properties were partitioned by royal charter into one of four types: proprietary, royal, joint stock, or covenant. King Charles II (grandson of James I) used the proprietary solution to reward allies and focus his own attention on Britain itself. He offered his friends colonial charters which facilitated private investment and colonial selfgovernment. The charters made the proprietor the effective ruler, albeit one ultimately responsible to English law and the king. Charles II gave New Netherlands to his younger brother The Duke of York, who named it New York. He gave another area to William Penn who named it Pennsylvania. This type of indirect rule eventually fell out of favour as the colonies became established and administrative difficulties eased. The English sovereigns sought to concentrate their power and authority and the colonies were converted to Crown colonies, i.e. governed by officials appointed by the King, replacing the people the King had previously appointed and under different terms. Of the 13 original colonies, the following began as proprietary: Province of Georgia--James Oglethorpe in 1733. Province of Carolina (which was divided in 1712 into North and South Carolina). Province of Pennsylvania--William Penn in 1681. Province of Maine--John Mason, 1622 to 1635; Sir Ferdinando Gorges, incumbent Province of Maryland-Granted by Charles I of England to the Catholics George and Cecilius Calvert, 1st and 2nd Lords Baltimore, in 1632. Province of New York (1664-1685)--originally founded as New Netherland Colony, later granted to Duke of York Province of New Jersey--originally founded as New Sweden Colony, sold by Duke of York to George Carteret. Colony of Delaware --originally founded as New Sweden Colony, later granted to Lord De La Warr.